The Essentials of Maintaining a Steel-String Acoustic Guitar

Once you've taken the plunge and bought a steel-string acoustic guitar, you want to do everything you can to maintain it properly. Maintaining a guitar includes cleaning it, storing it properly, making repairs and adjustments, and changing the strings when needed.

To keep the guitar playing and sounding as the builder intended, you must maintain an environment within a specific climate range. Guitars are always made under these specific temperature and humidity[more…]

Generally speaking, guitars never wear out, although you do need to spend some time taking care of your instrument. Fortunately, to keep your guitar in excellent health all you need to do is clean it regularly[more…]

The simplest type of guitar maintenance is cleaning. You should clean your guitar regularly or, at the least, every time it gets dirty. Keeping your guitar clean involves removing dirt and grime from all[more…]

Adjusting the action on a guitar is key to making sure that it sounds as good as it did the day you got it. The action is how a guitar plays, specifically the distance of the strings to the fingerboard[more…]

An important part of maintaining your guitar is knowing how to adjust the truss rod. When a guitar experiences temperature and humidity swings, such as when seasons change, it can develop a slight bow[more…]

A guitar can last many lifetimes; however, guitars have a variety of mechanical parts, and over time, any mechanical object can wear out. When that happens, you need to know how to replace those worn parts[more…]

Many people consider their guitars to be delicate, fragile instruments: They seem reluctant to tune their strings, let alone change them. But knowing when to change the strings on your guitar is crucial[more…]

Obviously, to put on a new guitar string, you have to remove the old one. This should be done whenever the strings start to show wear and tear or are difficult to tune. The quickest method is to simply[more…]

Once you've removed the old strings, you’re ready to put on a new one. The methods for stringing a guitar diverge slightly, depending on the type of guitar you have. Fortunately, steel-string acoustic[more…]

Once the steel strings are securely attaching to the bridge pin, you can focus your attention on the headstock. The steps for attaching steel strings to the tuning post of an acoustic guitar are slightly[more…]

Once you secure the new strings to your acoustic guitar, you need to get the new strings tuned up. As the string draws tight, hear the string come up to pitch. The easiest way to tune the new strings is[more…]